Ben Stein: Romney Would Be Best for Investors

Mitt Romney would make the best president when it comes to serving investors, says author/actor/economist Ben Stein, as the Republican’s economic policies would be more investor-friendly.

"Investors are buying a stream of corporate earnings and dividends. So which will be better for that? Whichever is better for the economy generally," he tells Yahoo. “I like Mr. Romney in that he’s against regulation, in that he’s pro-free enterprise.”

To be sure, Stein has some reservations about the former Massachusetts governor.

“I like Mr. Romney, I’m going to vote for him,” Stein says. “But when he says ‘trust me, I’ll do it,’ that’s not good enough. He has to say some things he has planned. … I don’t think he has a plan to put people back to work.”

President Barack Obama is even worse, Stein says. “Mr. Obama saying ‘I’ll do the same things I’ve done for three years and eight months.’ I’m sorry that didn’t work.”

Not everyone thinks the election is relevant for the stock market. Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig says the real issue is what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates.

Since 1965, large stocks have generated average annual returns nearly 12 percentage points higher when the Fed was cutting rates than when it was raising them, regardless of who was president, according to a study led by Robert Johnson, a finance professor at Creighton University.